Rational Chaos
by Ladder of Chaos
Summary: What would you do if you found yourself stranded in a world nothing like your own, one you thought you knew so well only to realize that you were hopelessly mistaken? When the stakes are real and it isn't just fun and games, how well would you fare in the realm of Azeroth? Portrays the OC's attempt to influence the future through knowledge of coming events and rational thinking.
1. Prologue

A symphony. In retrospect, that was the first incongruity. The customary racket of the ceiling fan - in rather dire need of lubrication or replacement - was so deeply ingrained into the first moments of his day that the tune now visiting his ears, produced by the alternation between silence and the wind, was disquieting despite its serene melody.

The wails of the wind stood out like the chorus of a song playing on loop in his head, further detail too fuzzy to place. Beginning with a couple of discordant notes, the tune began its descent into erratic noise, eventually leaving no trace of the underlying melody. What it finally ended up sounding much like was distant, twisted screams of hopeless agony.

The unfamiliar warmth seeming to come from his blanket was the first refuge his confused mind sought, yet at the very initiation of action, the warmth simply ceased to exist. His attempt to grasp the blanket only managed to startle him into finally fully waking, just as what should have been cloth crumbled away in his hands.

There was no warmth, no blanket, and the cacophony in the background was certainly no melody. His eyes reflexively snapped open, but couldn't quite take in the whole scene, while uncertainty and panic flooded out all attempts at thought. He squinted, blinked and then refocused his eyes, almost expecting nature to reconfigure itself around him. Nothing of the sort happened.

The hypothetical blanket, rather than being absent, ubiquitously traversed his entire field of view, a desert of pure snow hedged by a massive mountain range at the horizon. The twilight of dusk - or possibly dawn, impossible to discern - leaked over the edge of the mountains and seeped in through the skies, filling them with strange gradients of magenta and neon, further hidden behind the thin curtain of the falling snow. Faint traces of other hues crept into the dominant blues of the aurora above.

The whole scene seemed staged, an unnatural balance of black, white and color, yet the sensations were so compelling, so convincing, that his curiosity regarding his location began to outweigh the portion of his mind still in shock and undecided on whether to accept the reality of it all.

Seeking freedom from his shallow burial beneath the snow, he tried to lift his weight on one side, supported by his elbow. The hand that broke free of the snow gave him a sudden shock that involuntarily jerked him a few inches away. Stretched out was a skeletal facsimile of a hand, bones in motion coordinated by leathery, exposed muscles. It was completed with a distributed paucity of gaunt, pale skin, bones protruding at some of the knuckles, and hands blackened, probably as a result of extreme haematoma.

Reality only set in as he tried desperately to distance himself from it. His thoughts were in complete synchronization with the motion of the arm. The clotted blood splintered, most of it crumbling off his fingers like debris in an aftershock, while one thick stream, more black than red, began a meandering path down the sides, splitting in two branches at another protrusion of bone. Both of the rivulets found their way into the sea of snow below, which darkened first before settling into a shade of red as the blood dissipated. He made a tight fist for confirmation, and got the expected reaction. The arm was indeed his own.

His mind was now lost, frantically racing. His elbow, unable to take the angled thrust required to free the rest of his body from the snow, slid back down far too smoothly, as if the ground was metal. He shoveled away some snow, finally noticing how weak his sense of touch had become, and how immune he was to the freezing temperature that must have been surrounding him.

The snow he removed, now a light pink from the blood within, lay in a mound at the foot of which was lustrous, glossy ice, clearer than any mirror he had ever seen. In it was an otherwise perfect reflection of his bleeding hand, only vitiated by an eerie sapphire hue appearing to be originating below.

The blueish lighting swirled strangely in and around his arm, moving with the reflection of the hand above. He widened the aperture of his mirror by clearing out more snow, and noting his trepidation, braced himself before peering down at the face of the reflection of the body he was in.

The aggregate of his life's fears paled in comparison to the surge of terror that washed over him in that moment. A ghastly image stared back at him from below as though with evil portent, the skin pale, sinewy and diffused. There was an uncharacteristic symmetry to it, directing focus to the mystical inlays with azure gleams on either side of an appendage of bone that was once a nose. Each was an abyss, drawing him in to fathom the depths within, but also immobilizing him from any physical movement through absolute fear.

Time passed as he sat there motionless, he had no idea how long it had been. His thoughts had momentarily drifted to the monsters of ancient mythology that supposedly avoided open water in fear of their reflections, and how he could surely empathize with them now. In attempt to regain equanimity, he shut his eyes and began to think, lying back down to escape the physical position he'd been held in for so long that he was covered in snow again.

The whispers of the winds returned at once, and entwined within were the same phantom wails and horrid screams. They were punctuated by varying lengths of silence, which he found to be far more disturbing than the screams themselves. The added perplexity of his mismatched sensations bothered him as well - as the winds oscillated between zephyr and tempest, the tactile response remained imperceptible against the auditory one.

Every time a pattern in the sounds emerged, it quickly returned to a state of randomness, leaving him at a loss on whether to trust his hearing in his current state. A trace of repetitive sound however was discernible when he shifted his entire focus to the unlikely composition. There was an embedded metronome, a low, rhythmical clanging, held still in the air as if reverberating despite the vast openness of his surroundings.

Every sense was now deceiving or distracting him. His touch was gone, thankfully so, the cold and the pain in his current state would have been intolerable. His eyes were showing him glows that weren't there, ears recording sounds that shouldn't exist. In frustration, he decided to seal his ears the best he could, completely cutting off the intake of information overwhelming him. The blood of his newly released hand flowed into his aural cavities, and strangely enough, he could feel it quite well.

The face in the ice was not unfamiliar. The line of the jaw and size of the bone at the nose matched well enough to his own, to the face he was more accustomed to looking at in a mirror. The transformations hinted at impossible possibilities like reanimation, zombies or undeath. There was no shortage of the like in fiction, but whatever was happening had a definite sense of reality to it.

Despite the grotesque the physical transformation, his mental capacity seemed unhindered, and he was briefly thankful for that. He also realized he was unusually calm about the situation he was in overall, disrupted only by sudden acute stabs of intense fear. The worst of them were due to the memory of those petrifying eyes, but they were periodically set aside as his focus shifted constantly from one train of thought to another.

Theories began to form in his head, piling up continually like bricks building a wall, obscuring the truth. His greatest wish at that moment was to break down that wall, and he realized that doing that also required accepting whatever truth hid behind it. He opened his eyes to a scene unchanged, hesitantly released his ears and struggled till he sat upright. His attention was rapidly recaptured by the incessant clanging to his rear.

As he turned around, everything began to feel _wrong_. Colors became wan, the lights in the sky faded away and darkness loomed over a structure in the distance. A single spear of brilliant blue burnt dazzlingly against the dead sky as if it were descending from above into the depths of hell.

Dread took over him again, sending chills up his spine, as he stared at the destination of the blinding light. Even in its premature state, he could recognize the colossus being constructed with such alarming alacrity. The gargantuan walls that would span a good portion of the continent and horrific gates that would vie with the mountains in height were not yet in place, but the core of the structure was in plain sight.

A frozen throne placed regally at the zenith of a platform, rising from the depths of an enormous crater.

He found himself staring in terror at the Icecrown Citadel.


	2. The Dark One

Ner'zhul relished the flow of his new-found power which was now traveling through the continent like cold blood through veins. His abilities were still alien to him, he had barely penetrated the surface of his boundless potential, but he felt it already - the _invincibility._

He was the heart of the flow, frozen at its center in his icy tomb, yet supreme in its authority as it traversed mountains, caverns and vast plains of snow. The power over death itself, mastery in its domain, the ability to decimate unsuspecting minds to what should have been the point of no return.

And the power to then return them, making use of the remains in the aftermath of their annihilation.

Necromancy.

Today he would delve further into the secondary plane of his powers, telepathy, influence and control. His initial experiments had yielded rather conclusive results. The lesser beings indigenous to Icecrown - the name of the massive glacier on which his throne rose - had stood no chance as he forced himself into their minds. Their inherent savagery was the perfect substrate for him to implant with his will, creating an ideal composite; fanatic, part fear and part loyalty.

Being frozen solid as he currently was, they were more than just his instruments - they were his hands, his legs, a part of his very _being_. And yet they were so mundane, so hopelessly incompetent. Simple tasks was the most they could handle, and implementing his plans required something exponentially more - both in terms of quality and quantity.

Initially it had made no difference whether the target was alive or a corpse, when he commanded, it served. He had come to realize the subtle distinction between his servants over time though. When left alive, there were instances where he had to remind these slaves of how insignificant they really were.

Killing was just so much more… _convenient._

Since the discovery, the expansion of his legion progressed with brutal efficiency. Locate points of settlement or congregation, slaughter them with his mental prowess or strength in numbers, then add them to those very numbers. The vicious cycle had been going on for a while now, and he finally had the manpower needed to begin.

 _Manpower - all I have, if it can even be called that. Today though, I get what I need. The perfect test samples, and at the same time, the perfect form of refreshment to these monotonous days. It's been a while since I last slaughtered some of these… humans._

He thought he felt an approximation of a wry smile rise on his face. As always, however, he was quickly reminded of his lack of lips, or even a face for that matter. Gradually, his thoughts drifted towards another sensation that seemed quite alien to him. Nostalgia, he believed it was called.

His life on his homeland, Draenor, had been far from what could be called pleasant, but it had had its moments. He remembered the veneration and the weight his name had held among the disseminated orcish clans, which he had eventually brought together under a single banner.

 _The banner of the Horde - now raised in no land. I am already responsible for the formation of one legion of monsters, equally so for their eternal enslavement. Now I get to do it all over again._

Enticed by illusions, impersonations of the spirits of his ancestors and his mate, Ner'zhul had fallen into the servitude of the right hand of evil. Kil'jaeden, lord among demons, the supreme commander of the Burning Legion. The realization of his supposed blunder had come far too late to salvage any of the honor that once defined the orcs. All that remained was pent up bloodlust and rage, along with a dying land and the ghosts of a civilization wiped out at his command.

Self-doubt caused weakness, and there was no place for weakness in the Horde he had fashioned. His wayward protégé, Gul'dan, had usurped his position as Kil'jaeden's favored pawn, completing the genocide magnificently while Ner'zhul himself withered away.

Draenei, they were called, intellectually advanced and masters of the arcane. An indifference had remained between them and the orcs over generations of sharing their home planet, which left the orcs vulnerable to Kil'jaeden's deceptions as he cast the draenei as the villainous evil of the plot.

The slaughter had been glorious. The image that had frozen itself into his memory so vividly was the sacked remains Shattrath City, the draenei capital where they had made their last stand, razed to the ground and littered with corpses. Over four fifths of the entirety of the draenei race was dead by then. The muddied blue blood of the residents of Shattrath had been trickling out of their state of the art settlements through the meticulously constructed sewerage. The air had felt heavier, having soaked up the stench of blood and fire.

He had remained subservient the whole time, waiting for an opportune moment, suffering in silence as Kil'jaeden's plaything. For the Horde, however, there was no waiting, they needed to march on in their glorious conquest. Inspired by their eradication of the draenei and in fear of the imminent death of Draenor as a result of his demonic magics, Gul'dan had then led the Horde to their next massacre, to their new world.

Azeroth, lush with water and vegetation, an atmosphere not yet defiled by demonic corruption, and above all, a new race to massacre, the humans. The Horde had marched through the Dark Portal in their manic frenzy, and while initially successful due to the sheer force in numbers, their raids had slowly lost efficacy due to petulant infighting of their thoroughly corrupt leaders.

Ner'zhul's chance for vengeance had begun to present itself, and he had clasped on like the jaws of a starved wolf. It had come right after the disgraced Horde had been forced to retreat to their homeland in shame by the valiant might of their intended prey, the Alliance of Lordaeron.

He had known better than to repeat his disciple's idiocy of invading a foreign world with armies whose commanders had discordant ambitions. Using surgical strike teams that considered celerity paramount, he had acquired four heavily guarded relics that had served as focal points of Azeroth's arcane energy.

The Skull of a now deceased Gul'dan was the first. Then came the Book of Medivh, Guardian to the realm of Azeroth itself. The Jeweled Scepter of Sargeras, Kil'jaeden's only superior, the universe's most superlative evil; and the Eye of Dalaran, the capital of all Azerothian arcane magic; all delivered to him back on Draenor.

Combined, it was enough power to ravage the world, and as fate would have it, it was exactly what he had ended up doing. Filled with hubris and a unending voracity for power, he had walked out on his people - the orcs, the demons, the death knights; at that instant, whoever they were was no longer of consequence.

Any power only begot the appetite for something greater, there had been no other motive or explanation for his actions. As he had opened up rifts into boundless dimensions, he had fractured the very fabric of the existence of Draenor on a physical level, shattering it into sparse continental islands that would now remain floating on the pure energy of the Twisting Nether below.

His mind strived to jolt back to the present to avoid the memories of what followed, but to no avail. It all came back, the excruciating, downright horrendous torture.

For his betrayal, Kil'jaeden had chosen to torment him until he had become so accustomed to the heinous treatment that when it ceased, he was even more aggravated, begging to be put back into anguish. When the flesh of his near severed limbs had been seared off in front of his own eyes, his nerves had lost all functionality, an end to his physical pain. Soon after, his physical body ceased to exist leaving nothing, save his enervated soul behind.

By some miracle, he had regained a measure of equability despite all the torture. He had managed to keep up the façade of despair until Kil'jaeden had been satisfied with his servility and had decided it was time to put him to use.

He had intended to play through various scenarios introspectively and simulate his revenge at this point, but every ounce of mental fortitude and willpower was long gone and he had decided to put his faith in what was his only remaining virtue - patience.

His soul had been imprisoned in a fearsome set of armor complemented by the legendary sword, Frostmourne. This was the source of the power he now held. Further encased in a block of ice from the Twisting Nether; he had been cast down upon the world of Azeroth to carry out the bidding of his demonic master, accompanied by Dreadlords who would serve in a supervisory capacity.

He had realized they were no more than jailors, his vigilance would be key to his grand plans, more so then than ever. The time to formulate his vengeance had almost come. On attrition over time, the block of ice had melted away due to the armor's potent emanation and now resembled a throne, rather befitting the name he had been given.

He was no longer the orc shaman known as Ner'zhul, the chieftain of the Shadowmoon clan, or the warchief of Draenor.

All that remained in the Frozen Throne was The Lich King.

* * *

His mind surged back to the present, to the implementation of his master's newest orders. These demands he didn't detest, they all involved cleansing the world of life and helped supply his ever-growing army.

He extended his thoughts to the south, past the towering skyscraper that drew all scanning eyes to itself like magnets to solid iron. He had mixed feelings about the proximity of his would be dread citadel's location to the impressive structure.

The Wyrmrest Temple was the final refuge of mortal dragons, where they journeyed to from across the planet to make their final march through death's gates. He could vaguely make out the shrines raised in the honor of these souls circumscribing the temple, completing its aura of stillness and sanctity.

He quested further to the south, now almost upon the coast, his path marked by draconic fossils and skeletons protected by thin patinas of ice. Any attempts to exert his power on these was futile. Unlike orcish magic that he had enforced through will and belief, necromancy he now had access to required some expertise in the target's biology. The more he knew, the more functional the unit he raised - so far he had succeeded sufficiently only with humanoids and beasts.

He had assembled an impromptu assault unit based on the resources in the proximity. The few ice troll youths that had not grown to the towering eight feet of their adult kin formed the core of the unit. They had not filled out their muscular girth either, were quieter on their three-toed feet, and seemed to be swifter in response to his coordinated commands.

They were armed with the jagged shards of saronite recently mined from surface deposits to the east. An interesting alternative to steel, all his tests so far had shown its superiority as a metal added to its extreme abundance over iron on this continent.

The trolls were neither the smartest nor the deadliest in the unit though. Those titles were filled by the two saber worgs that now trailed silently behind them. Their presence was diminished to the point they seemed no more than apparitions of their long lost lupine ancestors. Their size was unremarkable, serving only to further highlight the sharp, hooked canines curling over their jaws, sparkling like icicles in the diffused moonlight.

The faint smell of decay accompanied the snowfall in its minute angle away from the encampment due to the chilling sea breeze. The settlement had absolutely no warning of what was to come.

The worgs slowly skirted the camp while the Lich King formed a mental map using the locations of the tents and burnt out campfires. One tent, slightly wider than the others, housed a crude armory as far as he could tell. The worgs completed their circles and then moved toward the tent in anticipation.

The trolls were the first to go in, choosing the smaller residences of canvas. They eagerly moved on to the task of slitting throats and muffling the screams. Shallow yet deadly slices, murder while keeping damage to the vessels at a minimum. The cuts would be stitched back together soon enough.

By the time they were through about half the tents, the alarms were raised. It had taken longer than he expected for this, and the spread of mayhem was still under check. The trolls, once finished with their tents, moved into a ring encircling the survivors. It was time for the worg's fangs to draw blood.

The carnage lasted until the first rays of dawn. The worgs' intent to hamstring and cripple for sport was suppressed by Ner'zhul who had them going straight for critical arteries. The brave found slaughter within while the craven met their ends at the periphery of the ring.

The rising sun cast long shadows over the fallen.

 _And now comes the time for you to rise again._

The dead began to rise as one, their voices echoing through his mind in a raging cacophony. He had grown used to indifference, but now felt elation. It was like the nutrition his decadent soul had been deprived of since his very creation.

He began to organize the fresh recruits into tactical parties, march some to their new asylum, while others were sent for surveillance. There were more humans on Northrend, and their days of life were now severely numbered.

* * *

Human bodies felt strangely fragile from the interior. His orcish frame, though considered weak amongst the members of the race, offered distinctively greater resistance to motion, and muscular power when called for. The trolls, wendigoes, bears and wolves he had now taken even more so.

He had known humans were fragile, crushing them had become increasingly easy as his proficiency in demonic magic had peaked towards his twilight years as an orc. He now found it intriguing that there were human warriors that had been on par, more adept, even, at melee combat than the seasoned orcs.

The degree to which they were dependent on technique in a melee was unquestionably high. He could control the bodies well, but realized that he simply could not engage an adversary one-on-one effectively. There were scarce few amongst these humans inherently adept at combat, and it now fell to him to improvise.

Despite their deficiency of pain and complete obedience, his scourge would ultimately be outdone by technique. The already flimsy frames would soon lose all flesh and fat, as he had seen with his other servants. He could not transfer the requisite agility into such a frame for combat by mental command.

The only solution he could think of instinctively was armor. Heavy armor would make their frames more like his own, allowing them to fare better in close combat under his control and tutelage. It was extremely flawed a solution, he realized, but he would conceive a more optimal one in time. Directing a few of his grunts to reshaping the saronite ore for weaponry would be his immediate response. He would certainly find use for good armament somewhere down the line.

Discerning the subtleties of the environment was the new imperative. Geography, factions, races, the competent and the incompetent; prospective slaves and allies, and those to avoid making enemies of. He already knew of one arachnoid race immune to his mental control when alive, scouring the depths below the land in great numbers with the occasional visit to the lands above. He would enjoy dealing with them, he could hardly wait, and sent a few among his force in the general direction he believed was the spot they used to alternate between the land and their subterranean recesses.

Directing two expedition parties in opposite directions along the southern continental coast was the other trivial call to make. They would maximize efficiency in the two pronged quest of outlining the continent and unearthing civilization by lingering on the coast for as far as circumstance permitted. The trolls and worgs were split evenly between them.

The remaining would march to their new asylum and oversee the procurement of resources, architecture and construction, smithing and crafting - all tasks that had been on hold until he could establish a command structure or hierarchy.

The first of his minions to encounter something of import was from the returning party. It was a putrid red dragon, scales now a dull coppery distribution on an enormous shriveled skeleton, tranquilly gazing at the skies in preparation for its transcendence beyond the worldly plane.

It decayed unnaturally, the process beginning even though it had not yet breathed its last. A shimmer remained in its eyes, indicative of the wisdom it had amassed over centuries of life, giving a mismatched air of divinity to a figure well into the stages of decomposition.

It noticed his ghoul though, and its sudden hostility was evident. A piercing gaze burnt through the ghoul's eyes, and the Lich King felt those amber orbs stare _into_ him, while the ghoul seemed to be frozen with a rising fear. The drake did not reposition itself even by an inch, a single whip of its tail had shattered the undead instantly.

It went on to sense the bulk of the march of scourge and initiated an effort to propel itself into their path. Now wary of the threat dragons posed, even those with a foot already in the grave, he repositioned the march for a tactical retreat.

The red dragonflight took charge of the domain of life and all things living, meaning as a consequence of him being death incarnate, they would inevitably count amongst his greatest adversaries in the wars to come.

 _There will be a need for scourge to oppose them when the time comes. With a possible army of dead dragons within my reach, it is up to me to learn to raise them…_

The muscular atrophy of the dragon's wings seemed to leave it unable to prolong its pursuit. It temporarily took flight only to swerve aimlessly like a bird with one wing, and crashed head first into the snow-covered rocks.

No matter the glory and majesty in life, bones were all that remained of its brethren, strewn indefinitely over the landscape. The lands south of Icecrown were all much the same, and had come to be called the Dragonblight. The red dragon no longer moved, and would soon be no more than a skeleton in snow.

With the continued retreat, he came upon the remains of a behemoth so large, the only living thing it could be compared to without exaggeration was itself. The height the Wyrmrest Temple was probably of the same order as the wingspan of this monstrosity.

The skeletal system was largely frozen solid, nothing but half the ribcage had found itself above the surface. This in itself was adequately large to encompass a dozen dragons of size akin to that of the one he had just encountered. From his current perspective this looked like an archway straight to hell.

 _This is my answer. This one being has the power to tear worlds apart. Power beyond me, beyond even Kil'jaeden…_

He left behind a few undead to survey and learn as much as they could. The remaining embarked on the last leg of their tedious journey.

His focus suddenly shifted to his spider-hunting party.

"Humans are not welcome to the caverns of the nerubians. State your business or perish, imbeciles."

* * *

Nerubians. Immune to his attempts at telepathic domination. Intellectually advanced enough to speak the human tongue. Now he would see how they fared in combat.

This one stood about ten feet tall, on six double-jointed legs, the other two limbs clutching a spear of sorts. The top was affixed with a conventional metallic protrusion, slightly arced to the inside, which could be used for thrusting from range. The bottom had its protrusions on diametrically opposite points, perpendicular to the length of the staff. It looked like they were dragon's talons, fused into the wood somehow. They would undoubtedly be used for swinging attacks from the sides in combination with the frontal thrusts of the cold metal.

The hissing and clicking came again, with words somehow twisted within. "I defile my mouth with warnings spoken in your vile tongue, and yet you choose silence. So be it, your death wish is granted."

It took an offensive stance, grasping the spear about a third of its length up from the side with the metallic blade. Its center of gravity was relatively high, making full use of the support provided by six powerful legs. It also seemed to favor its right side, he knew from the way it angled its staff.

He held the element of surprise and strength in numbers, his party numbering seventeen. Only one had been spotted by the nerubian as yet, but it remained wary, it was clearly on the lookout for more hostiles. Despite his numbers he was heavily disadvantaged, all of them were unarmed, and there was the added issue of range. Without a strategy, he would have difficulty just getting close enough to strike. He was now beginning to realize that the trolls would have been better suited to this task.

Surrounding it would be a futile effort, with its talon-fitted staff it could incapacitate any number of foes in a circular formation. He began the tactical shuffle of the pieces on the board, but waited for the fighting to begin before doing the repositioning. The silence now somehow seemed deafening, not even a heartbeat or exhalation to break it, and the sound of a footstep would give a lot away.

The nerubian charged effortlessly, almost as though it glided across land. As anticipated, the first swing came in a downward arc from his left. With no attempt to dodge, he had the corpse root its feet firmly into the ground. It shifted its left arm to accept the full impact of the blow, the predicted point of impact supported by the right palm.

The talon penetrated deep, straight through the arm and hand, protruding from the other side. He had his servant bite on for more grip, leaving the nerubian perplexed for the split second he needed.

Judging the weight of the staff by the moment of its penetrative force, he decided he would need two corpses to break through it at the point two-thirds the length from the metallic blade, halfway between the nerubian's grip and the taloned end.

He would be supported by the force of the nerubian itself that would now unquestionably be attempting to wrench the spear free. He had four scourge already placed on the left for this, three of them now charging shoulder first towards the spear to ensure it was taken out of the fight.

He had made a grave miscalculation though. The nerubian was mentally acute, its mind functioned as a weapon quite possibly as sharp as its spear's apex. Instead of attempting to wrench free, it diverted its force in an upward arc, fracturing the skull of the undead through its mouth and watching it drop off the spear largely due to its own weight.

The three mindlessly charging scourge now stood no chance, a quick reverse blow decapitating one through a punctured throat, while simultaneously bringing the spear skilfully back over the nerubian's shoulder into a thrusting position. It followed through with an ersatz throw to penetrate the throat of the farther of the remaining two. The motion of the spear was abruptly halted as its length traversed the insectoid hand which then jammed the talons at the other end.

Its now free left forelimb, every bit a weapon in itself, devastatingly thrust out towards the nearer of the two and chopped off the head like scissors cutting through straw, leaving four enemies down, and a fifth distinctly visible and alone. This was getting worse with every passing second.

 _Time to improvise._

* * *

Xylinx lightly dug the tip of the spear into the snow and charged, loosening his grip till he had reached the midpoint of his staff. Though puzzled about one too many aspects of the ongoing skirmish, he now had complete confidence in his assumption that his enemies were all unarmed.

It was not his life that was at stake but his pride, and that meant a great deal more to him. He had intended to divert the humans without bloodshed, all humans he had encountered in the past were never lacking in cowardice. If his mere presence did not suffice, feigning hostility always did the trick.

He was now certain he had spilled no human blood, though ironically also uncertain of whether he had spilled blood at all, seeing as there was only gore on his spear. But no matter how dead these abominations already seemed, they looked perfectly human, and he was about to kill a fifth. Word spread like wildfire, and by sundown half the empire of Azjol-Nerub would sing exaggerated ballads of how he had finally come down from his pedestal to their level.

They were going for his spear, but that served no great advantage, he knew he could take them out with just as much ease bare-handed. He drove his spear straight through the heart of the fifth human just as it seemed to be contemplating retreat. He then flung the body over his head to the location he believed there would be more hostiles positioned to initiate an ambush.

It fell with the ghastly sonority of multiple bones being fractured, directing all focus to the point where it lay. It was incredibly silent considering how distinctively he could hear cracks so subtle. Time seemed to freeze, playing out excruciatingly slowly, and he remained motionless, ready in stance for what seemed like ages. The quiescence was punctuated only by carrion birds seeming to flock towards the trees in the background.

There were no hidden humans in the vicinity of any of the bodies. Deciding not to linger, he slowly began to back away, imbibing every detail he could from the macabre surroundings. His instinct warned him of something amiss, but his logical reasoning could not find anything out of picture. He stayed focused as he backed into the treeline, relaxing his grip on the staff upon entering a perceived realm of safety.

By the time he figured out the missing piece, it was too late. There were no footprints in the snow, including his own, despite the fact that he had walked the exact route to get there.

The remaining humans had already launched themselves onto him from the canopy above. They had masterfully assembled there after tracing back his footsteps and clearing their own the whole way back. He swatted aimlessly trying to get them off, but they were everywhere. He felt his legs being pulled apart from both sides and he was soon strewn cynically on the ground, his ventral side completely pressed down against the frigid snow.

Three of his legs were already dislocated, and the others would soon follow. He lifted one of those he could still operate and used it to impale something that he estimated was an abdomen. He tried to finish the killing off with his arms but realized they no longer heeded his call. In desperation, he gnawed into one of his assailants. His mouth was instantly repulsed by the taste of flesh that was rotten and probably had been for days. He was being killed by dead humans.

He felt the cold steel of his spear enter his only right eye, pushed with repeated thrusts till it emerged from the back of his skull. As he lost consciousness, the cold seemed to be displaced by a strange warmth, and a heavenly bliss began to seduce him away from the pain and worries of the mortal world.


End file.
